War Tax Resistance in the Friends Journal in 1987

War tax resistance in the Friends Journal in
1987

The question of how Quaker meetings and other organizations ought to respond to
the tug-of-war between the
IRS and
their war tax resisting employees was among the major concerns of Quakers in
1987, as can be seen in the pages of the
Friends Journal.

The IRS
has long been trigger-happy with its “frivolous filing” penalty. According to
the 1 February issue:

Adding “signed involuntarily under penalty of statutory punishment” to the
IRS
form 1040 will no longer bring a fine for a “frivolous” return. In a case
brought by the American Civil Liberties Union in Montana, a district court
ruled that Donna Todd of Billings,
Mont., was protected by the
First Amendment when she typed the above on her 1040 form. The
IRS
is appealing the ruling; meanwhile, it has told its agents to refrain from
imposing the frivolous-return penalty against taxpayers who editorialize on
their return.

The agency didn’t seem to want to learn its lesson, and was still overapplying
this penalty until very recently. See
The Picket Line
for 21 May 2013 for another example of
the agency being forced to back down on this issue.

A profile of Barbara Reynolds appeared in the 15
February issue, penned by her daughter, Jessica Shaver. It focused on
her war tax resistance. Excerpts:

My mother is hardly your stereotypical tax evader. At 70, she lives on Social
Security, and her sole assets are a small apartment in downtown Long Beach,
California, a beat-up Chevette (bright green), an electronic typewriter, and
a six-toed cat named Marmalade.

But she has been a deliberate and most determined resister of taxes
since 1970. After years of courteous
correspondence, responding to explanations of her position with repeated
warnings marked “Past Due. Final Notice,” the
IRS
quietly closed in.

One day recently, her checking account balance was $131.14. The next day it
was zero. She tried to make an electronic withdrawal from her savings
account, which had held $799. A message on the screen reported, “Funds not
available.” She was left with $3.06 in cash.

Only days before, Long Beach City College had voted her Senior Citizen of the
Year. At a luncheon in her honor, her efforts on behalf of Indochinese
refugees were lauded, and she received a pen set inscribed “Barbara Reynolds,
Woman of Peace.”

Last August, she had dinner with Japanese
Prime Minister Nakasone, the Japanese government having paid her way to
Hiroshima for the 40th anniversary of the first atomic bomb used on people.
Because of her many years of service to the survivors-entirely voluntary-she
was the first woman granted honorary citizenship in that city.

A few months earlier, members of the War Resisters League named her their
Person of the Year. In 1984, she was selected as
one of 14 “Wonder Women” — women more than 40 years old recognized by the
Wonder Woman Foundation for outstanding contributions to society. The
foundation flew her to New York for a press conference with Bill Moyers.
Polly Bergen introduced her and presented her award for “striving for peace
and equality.”

So why is a little old white-haired “woman of peace” withholding taxes from
the United States government? It is precisely as a woman of peace that she
withholds taxes. She believes her stand on taxes to be consistent with her
commitment to a world without war. She doesn’t want her taxes, in whole or in
part, to go for defense.

She has been up front with the
IRS
about her motives. In one of her letters, she wrote, “Having spent 18 years
in Hiroshima working with victims of our atomic bombs, I can only say that
never, so far as it is in my power, will any portion of my income go to the
government as long as it continues to base its economy and its foreign policy
upon the development, stockpiling, and deployment of nuclear weapons and
missile systems.”

For her, the honorable way to avoid paying taxes is to avoid owing them. So
she studiously attempts to keep her income below the minimum taxable level
and gives generously to deductible causes.

In 1984, however, Mum had to sell the old family
homestead in Ohio. In spite of her best intentions, the house had appreciated
in value, and she wasn’t eligible for the one-time capital gains exemption.
She was appalled to find that she owed the government $1,189.

She paid the money but she didn’t pay it to the
IRS.
She sent $667 to the Conscience and Military Tax Campaign Escrow Account and
$522 to Friends United Meeting Peace Tax Fund. CMTC
calls itself “a mechanism to accept payments in anticipation of legislative
action” now pending to create a federal Peace Tax Fund. The
FUM Peace
Tax Fund is for members who wish their taxes to be used for life-affirming
activities. When and if such a federal fund is created, both accounts will
have all individual deposits transferred to it.

In the meantime, because of penalties, she still owes more than $400. It will
be interesting to see how the
IRS
claims its remaining debts. Maybe they’ll garnishee the six-toed cat.

A postscript noted: “[Reynolds] has received notice that the
IRS has
placed a lien on her property for $162.79 in taxes owed for
1984 and has seized $100.83 from her checking
account. ”

In the 15 March issue was a fantasy by
Charles R. Sides that imagined a more “user friendly” personal computer.
Excerpt:

I chose the Home Accountant which neatly arranges my expenses and income in
spreadsheet form. After booting the program I began to record my written
checks. A major expense for the month of April is my reconciliation of the
past year’s taxes and the quarterly payment for the next year. When I entered
the check number, it responded correctly and asked to whom it was paid. I
entered
IRS.
Next question was the amount. I entered. At prompting to enter my message the
Corona suddenly asked, “Do you know what portion of your taxes goes to the
defense department?” “Have you contacted your congressperson concerning the
World Peace Tax Fund?” “Have you considered withholding your taxes as a
protest against the administration’s military position?” Unable to answer in
good conscience, I exited the program.

Was this “user Friendly” computer going to continue its assault on my
conscience? I hadn’t counted on that possibility.

The “War Tax Concerns Committee” of New England Yearly Meeting — Cushman
Anthony, Elizabeth Boardman, Alan Eccleston, Finley Perry, and George
Watson — published a statement in the same issue:

New England Yearly Meeting, through various minutes, has declared that
refusal to pay all or part of one’s income tax is an appropriate way to
refuse to participate in war making, for those who feel led to engage in such
a witness. A number of members of the yearly meeting who have felt so called
have been offered guidance and support through the Peace and Social Concerns
Committee, the Committee on Sufferings, and the
NEYM
War Tax Alternatives Fund.

War tax resistance is usually an individual witness rising out of the Peace
Testimony. However, if one of our members who wishes to make this witness is
also an employee of the yearly meeting, some additional considerations come
into play. The question presently facing us was raised by the Personnel
Committee: Should
NEYM
refuse to act as the federal government’s agent in collecting — by
withholding and paying over to the IRS — taxes of an employee who refuses on the basis of conscience to pay war taxes?

The problem is not new. Action has already been taken by other organizations,
including Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, London Yearly Meeting, American
Friends Service Committee, and the General Conference Mennonite Church. Each
of these organizations has wrestled with it for a number of years, and after
careful consideration, each refused to withhold taxes. Nobody yet knows the
full consequences of any of these decisions. There are difficult questions
involving individual conscience on both sides.

We note some of the concerns and reasoning of the Meeting for Sufferings of
London Yearly Meeting in taking this step. Some Friends saw the Society as
having become a little too comfortable in its peace testimony and saw in this
witness a gesture to all peace loving people. It was noted that since Quakers
are people who put principles into practice, the yearly meeting as an
employer of conscientious objectors should assist them in their witness. On
the other hand, concerns were raised that should a witness be made, there
would be criticism that “it was neither logical to juggle with the
mathematics of tax monies, nor moral to opt out of the give and take of a
democratic society.” Another observation was that Friends “from John Woolman
to draft resisters had been careful to place no one but themselves at risk,”
whereas this refusal to withhold would place the yearly meeting itself at
risk.

In a letter to the Board of Inland Revenue
(9/28/82), the clerk of the Meeting for
Sufferings of London Yearly Meeting noted, “The name Meeting for Sufferings
derives from the 17th century when Friends
met to give support to those of their members who suffered in diverse ways
for conscience’s sake and that at various times the Society of Friends
corporately has recognized a religious obligation to stand with individuals
whose commitment of conscience may not currently be recognized by the laws of
this country.”

In deciding this question for ourselves as a yearly meeting, there is a case
for joining the witness as an employer by refusing to withhold income tax
money or refusing to forward withheld money to the
IRS;
and there is a case for continuing to withhold and to forward money to the
IRS as
required by law.

The Case for Continuing to Withhold as Required by Law

The United States has one of the most effective tax systems in the world.
Its success rests on the voluntary compliance of
U.S. citizens.
Undermining this system by noncompliance with the law does great harm to
the system.

Refusing to pay withheld taxes to the government would put us in
opposition to the Internal Revenue System. Our real dispute, however, is
with the Department of Defense. Consequently, this effort misdirects our
energy and our witness away from that portion of governmental power which
we would choose to oppose.

Failing to pay all of the tax money would not directly reduce the war
making budget. By legal process, the
IRS
would almost certainly collect the money plus penalties. Even if it did
not, the military would get its full appropriation anyway and would be
unaffected by the witness.

This action could well jeopardize some assets of the yearly meeting, the
standing of the yearly meeting as a taxdeductible organization, and the
officers of the yearly meeting. Since some members of NEYM
are not in agreement with the war tax objection position, they should not
be asked to put themselves and the yearly meeting in jeopardy for a cause
in which they do not believe.

The yearly meeting is supporting and should continue to support
individual war tax witness actions. If the yearly meeting does not join
the witness as employer, its employees will not be placed in any worse
position than Quakers employed elsewhere.

A number of members of the yearly meeting feel required by their
consciences to pay all the taxes which they owe to the federal
government. A decision by the yearly meeting to refuse to pay employees’
withheld taxes would violate the consciences of these Friends.

The Case for Joining the Witness as Employer

We live in a world where there are in excess of 15 million deaths a year
by starvation (41,000 a day) while $660 billion goes to military
expenditures. It is estimated that just $60 billion, or less than 10
percent of all military expenditures, would eliminate starvation on this
planet. Purchasing weapons of war not only increases the likelihood of
killing, it causes thousands of deaths each day by depriving people of
the sustenance needed for their survival. As a religious organization in
a country that is one of the leaders in the arms race, we have a clear
responsibility to address this issue. Joining a witness as employer gives
the yearly meeting an opportunity to take concrete action as a religious
body on this critical problem.

Taking this position is not a threat to the voluntary tax system, since
it is an open and honest witness, and tends to encourage others to be
open and honest in their dealings with the
IRS.
It is the creeping tendency to be dishonest in declaring one’s financial
situation that threatens to undercut our tax system.

If this witness is viewed as a threat to the voluntary tax system, there
is a remedy at hand — passage of the World Peace Tax Fund Act in the
U.S. Congress.
New England Yearly Meeting’s action would work towards passage of that
act, which would benefit individuals in the Society of Friends, as well
as our country as a whole.

Friends’ testimony on peace is one of our central experiences of truth.
The weight of this issue in our world calls us to act with clarity and
resolve, regardless of risk and possible complications. The fact that the
tax may be collected does not diminish the value of this conscientious
objection to war.

Taking this action as a yearly meeting gives us an opportunity to define
the differences between our beliefs and those of the
U.S. culture
in general. This could then strengthen the resolve in individual Friends
to speak out and take action in regard to our war making society.

Other Quaker organizations have already begun this witness, and our
standing with them adds our testimony to theirs. This amplifies the
message to the world of Friends regarding war and peace, and at the same
time will contribute to the unification of Friends.

We urge all Friends to weigh these considerations prayerfully and to seek
clarity on how the yearly meeting should respond if one of its employees
requests that it support him or her by refusing to pay withheld taxes to the
government.

As an example of Friends weighing such considerations, the same issue reported
on a meeting of 35 people from 21 Friends organizations at the Pendle Hill
center a few months earlier “to discuss
their responsibilities when employees are conscientious objectors to the
payment of war taxes.” Excerpts:

Wallace Collett, clerk of the Friends Committee on War Tax Concerns which
organized the conference, noted that this may be the flrst time so many
Quaker organizations have come together to deal with the issue of how
individual conscience flows into our corporate organizations.

In a talk formed by images of “Stones and the Builder” drawn from
1 Peter
2, Kara Cole, Administrative Secretary of Friends United Meeting, noted
that Scripture shows how the lonely and isolated flnd themselves formed into
a community which is the temple of God. The issues for the conference
revolved around choices, risk, and obedience, as they relate to appropriate
use of our taxes. Kara pointed out that when we choose Jesus, we choose to be
with one who was alone in prayer, who was misunderstood, who was the living
stone rejected by people. However, we also find that we become living stones.
Not only can we find the temple in one another, we also find one another in
the temple. This image set the tone for the remainder of the conference, as
participants sought ways to allow our institutions to be incarnated as
communities under the influence of religious concern.

Representatives from the Friends Journal, the
Friends World Committee for Consultation, Friends United Meeting, London
Yearly Meeting, the American Friends Service Committee, Philadelphia Yearly
Meeting, and other Quaker organizations and groups were able to share
firsthand experience with ways Quaker employers have responded to staff
members’ conscientious objection to payment of war taxes. A panel of three
lawyers presented a particularly helpful analysis of the legal situation.
These materials and some queries and advices that emerged from small group
discussions will be revised and made available by the Friends Committee on
War Tax Concerns.

While participants struggled with complex technical issues associated with
war tax resistance, there seemed to be agreement that Quaker institutions
have a corporate responsibility to assist their employees in responding as
openly and honestly as possible. Employers were admonished to develop
policies to clarify the situation for the employees. Employees and employers
were urged to work together to avoid any form of tax evasion. Employers need
to develop policies so that their employees are not put in the position of
having to commit fraud to gain control of income that would be subject to
withholding. Employees need to practice full disclosure of their actual tax
liability and redirect refused taxes to constructive programs. Individuals
were urged to seek clearness with their faith community (monthly meeting or
church) before engaging in this witness.

A letter received from Marion Franz, Executive Director of the National
Campaign for a Peace Tax Fund, told Friends of the importance of
corporate witness on war taxes. She finds that most Congressional
staffers — who are rarely asked to consider rights of individual
conscience — sit up and take notice when informed that the issue is not just
of concern to some individuals, but that organizations have begun to take
stands in cooperation with their employees. Bob Hull, of the Mennonite
General Conference, reported that New Call to Peacemaking has tentative plans
to hold a conference on war tax concerns for Mennonite, Brethren, and Quaker
employers in the fall of 1987.

This conference, somewhat delayed, was announced in the
December issue:

The Challenge to church organizations from employees requesting their federal
taxes not be withheld will be the topic of a conference jointly sponsored in
February 1988 by New Call to Peacemaking and
the Quaker War Tax Concerns Committee.

A note in the back of the 15 March issue
said:

Conscientious tax resisters who are forthright in their dealings with the
IRS are
unlikely to face a criminal penalty, according to Peter Goldberger in
War Tax Concerns: Options and Consequences. This
booklet offers the layperson an overview of the
IRS tax
collection process for those who may be considering war tax resistance…

A second note concerned the booklet Taxes and
Idolatry which concerned “the forgotten biblical witness in which
taxation is seen as an affront to God.”

The 1 May issue included an article that
noted in passing that at the London Yearly Meeting “[i]n recent years… two
clerks were threatened with imprisonment on the issue of whether the yearly
meeting should withhold for taxation purposes a part of employees’ pay.”

That issue also announced an upcoming
“seminar/lobbying day” on behalf of the Peace Tax Fund, and an
upcoming “National War Tax Resistance
Action Conference” — which is to say, a NWTRCC gathering.

As a war tax resister, I’ve often struggled with this question, and for
myself, I do not feel that my dispute is with either. Most immediately, my
dispute is with the
U.S. Congress and
its refusal to grant conscientious objectors to military taxes the same right
of conscience granted to conscientious objectors to military service.

The legal arguments are manifold and include, among others, free exercise of
religion guaranteed by the First Amendment and international law which
involves Article 6 of the
U.S. Constitution
and the Nuremberg principles. Indeed, much of the thinking and correspondence
of the founding fathers indicates that freedom of conscience was a principle
they strongly believed in, but one they did not specifically list in the
Constitution.

I suppose, if I were to follow the thread of responsibility to the spool, it
would ultimately lead to the entire population of the United States that, in
some macabre contortion of expediency, has put the welfare of the state above
the rights of the individual, more closely a description of communism than of
Western-style democracy.

Ultimately, I feel that war tax resistance is a religious issue and no
governmental power has any authority in the case; it is strictly a personal
concern to be resolved, individually, with God. Thus our goal, as I see it,
is to convince Congress of the religious nature of this issue.

The “Sufferings” column in that issue concerned Jerilynn C. Prior:

[Prior], a member of Vancouver (Canada) Meeting who paid into Conscience
Canada’s Peace Trust Fund that portion of her Canadian federal income taxes
which goes for military purposes, has had her appeal to the Tax Court of
Canada rejected. In 1986, Revenue Canada
assessed the amount of tax that Jerilynn had withheld from her
1982 income tax. She appealed the assessment,
but was denied the appeal. The forthcoming hearing will be in Vancouver; the
case will eventually go to a Federal Court of Appeal and then to the Supreme
Court of Canada as a test case of the 1982
Charter of Rights provisions for freedom of conscience and religion. Legal
costs will probably exceed $100,000. Donations, payable to the Peace Tax
Legal Fund, may be sent to The Society for Charter Clarification…

Prior’s case got a more in-depth look in the
October issue. Excerpts:

Jerilynn Prior, a member of Vancouver
(B.C.) Meeting,
will be the first person to claim in court that the new Canadian Charter of
Rights and Freedoms provides the right not to pay for war, and she is
prepared to follow this claim through the courts to the Supreme Court of
Canada.

Her first war tax resistance was in 1967 with
refusal to pay the 10 percent telephone tax which was reimposed specifically
to support the Vietnam war. Throughout the time she had an income in the
United States she withheld various kinds of taxes and put the money into
recognized charities when there was no peace trust fund.

She became a Quaker in Cambridge
(Mass.) Meeting in
1970.…

She went to Canada in 1976 and became a Canadian
citizen in 1984. Beginning in
1982 (which was the year the Charter of Rights
and Freedoms was enacted) she consistently refused to pay the government that
portion of her federal income tax which would otherwise be spent for war
purposes. She paid this money into Conscience Canada’s Peace Tax Fund.

Her decision to withhold the portion of her income tax which would otherwise
be spent for war purposes and to deposit it in a Peace Tax Fund was made from
a deep-felt conviction that war is wrong. Her appeal in the tax court in
1986 against a ministerial decision that she
should be assessed the amount she deducted in
1982 was pursued with the same spiritually-based
conviction. And when the tax court ruled against her, her decision to take
the case through the federal court system was with the conviction that she
could not honestly teach peace to her children while paying for war. She
feels that to have a strong belief and not to act on it is hypocrisy. She
insists that her action is not a political one and maintains she is not
trying to change the government or the Income Tax Act. She affirms the
government of Canada and is proud to be in that country. She does not wish to
change government policy on taxation but merely wants a way in which to pay
taxes and at the same time uphold her conscience and religious beliefs. When
asked if the government could assure her that none of her tax money would go
to military purposes, would she pay the full amount of tax to the government,
she replied, “I certainly would.”

Jerilynn has specifically asked that these legal proceedings not be referred
to as “her test case,” for her action is being upheld by many others and is
taken on behalf of all.…

A great deal of media attention was aroused when the decision by the tax
court judge was made public. No doubt an even greater media coverage will be
given to the next court decision. Such publicity gives to those who disagree
an opportunity to voice their opinions, to hear responses, and to give the
subject more thought. When it increases public awareness of the urgent need
for nonviolent solutions to disagreements, that is, in itself, an
accomplishment. We hope that the final Supreme Court decision will be
affirmative and will set the stage for other equally sincere efforts in
Canada, and perhaps elsewhere, toward a more peaceful world.

Prior’s Federal Court appeal was denied in
1988 and the Supreme Court declined to
take up her case in 1990. She appealed
further, to the UN
Human Rights Committee, but they too refused to hear her appeal.

Another article in the October issue concerned
the Norway Yearly Meeting. Excerpt:

A growing feeling of guilty conscience among members led to drafting a letter
to members of the government and various peace groups about the peace tax
issue. The meeting asked that ways be found to direct tax money from those
who wish to humanitarian, ecological, or promoting peace instead of to the
defense budget.

Leah B. Felton had a letter-to-the-editor printed in the
December issue that covered little new ground,
and discussed war taxes (though not war tax resistance) and promoted the Peace
Tax Fund as if nobody had ever heard of these things before. It’s notable
perhaps only for the opening phrase: “No doubt the overwhelming majority of
Friends pay income tax…”

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